Don’t Tell the Milkman If You Don’t Want Him to Tell the World: How to Recognize and Stop Relational Aggression

By Johanna Sparrow

People will do whatever they can to bully you into doing what they want you to do, including exclude you from others you know, tell your most trusted secret, lie, and even spread rumors from one person to another, all in an effort to hurt you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Apr 30, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483527529

Book preview

winner.

Introduction

Everyone, at least the friends and family I’ve talked to, said they’d had a problem with telling the wrong person the trials they were going through. Face it, sometimes we just need someone to talk to and fast. Yes, it’s been decades since a Milkman has shown up at your door step to deliver milk, but the statement my dad always said has stuck out in my head, Don’t tell the Milkman.

When I was young, I had no clue what he was talking about. But when I got a little older, the statement, Don’t tell the Milkman, made sense to me. I am sure there were a lot of other things that were said about a Milkman that weren’t nice, but we will just stick with this statement for now.

The problem with the Milkman is that he knows a lot of people, some good and some bad. I hope you see where this is going. If not, let me explain in more detail. I remember when I first got married and had my first argument with my husband. I immediately went to my good friend and told her all about it. I had known her my whole life, so, to me, she was a safe person to tell. But that trust I had in my friend was soon disrespected when I bumped into another old friend of ours at the grocery store. We began talking in one of the aisles. I had my two-year-old son with me at the time, and she was with her two kids.

Happy to see her, I noticed a sad look on her face as she opened up and said, I am so sorry to hear about your breakup.

I was taken back for a moment, and then I asked her, What do you mean?

I heard you are getting a divorce, she said.

Wait a minute, a breakup and now a divorce? I said.

It was clear she was misinformed about my marital status and the matter at hand. I was clueless as to how she knew any of my business, especially since I had not told her. Feeling confused, I went home and called my mother right away and shared what had happened.

Wrong move, because somehow everything I was saying she took as facts that I was going through a breakup. After calming myself down, I remember ending the call with my mother and telling her that everything was okay at home. Soon after, I got a call from my dad asking if everything was okay, and if he could speak to my husband.

I am sure his intention was good at the time, but I was torn to what mother could have said to get him to call in the first place. I quickly told him my husband was not home yet and ended the call. I found myself letting half of the folks in my family know that I was okay and the marriage had a bump in the road. It was nothing more than just a misunderstanding and a baby-sized argument. Clearly, I had talked to the wrong persons about my personal situation.

I eventually got around to asking that good girlfriend of mine, who I shall keep nameless, since she may be reading this story, if she shared anything of my conversation I had with her? And sure enough, she did, but she assured me that the story I heard was not the story she told.

Frowned faced, I wondered why they would share any of my business and turn it into gossip.

That’s when I said out loud, Ah, ha, because they were the Milkman.

Chapter I: Who’s the Milkman?

The truth is the Milkman can be anyone or anybody, but it’s really what the Milkman is carrying that makes him not good and that’s called relational aggression. They can be male or female, short, tall, black or white, family, friends, co-workers, bosses, pastors, doctors, lawyers, mailmen, or even you. They are human and may have good intentions when listening to your problems, but at the same time, if that’s all they are doing in the relationship is listening, then you are probably the topic of discussion in their conversations with others.

Most milkmen start off by saying, I was told by a little bird. I heard through the grapevine. And a little bird told me. There is no little bird talking to anyone. It’s only the Milkman or you.

But this works both ways, because you may have caught yourself saying something about someone you know very little about, but you believed the story. You may know the person you are talking about but gossiping about their issues or whatever they told you, regardless if it was good news or bad news, it made you be the center of attention.

It’s hard to stop gossiping but that’s how lies are spread by others. When you learn how, it becomes easier to stop yourself from participating in the Milkman practices and behaviors. You don’t have to go around telling people’s business to people they don’t know. Learn how to keep your topics straightforward and centered, and don’t give too much away to any one specific person.

It’s no fun when your business gets back to you after being torn in pieces. And it’s no fun when you gossiped about someone else’s business and now you are looking like a fool, because you didn’t know what you were talking about to begin with.

This reminds me of a time when I had a little of the Milkman’s ways of my own. I told someone on my job that I was a writer and had written two books. First off, I knew this person didn’t care for me, and once again, I will not say a name, but I have worked at many places and have shared this information before learning not to. I told this person that I was an author and had books to prove it. What was I thinking? Clearly, I was dealing with someone and acting like the worst Milkman, a jealous one at that. A negative aspect of the Milkman is he or she is someone no one likes, because mailmen can break up families.

To make a long story short, this Milkman had affected people around me whom I knew nothing about, and I knew that I had one are two for sure, in my case, they were milk women. So word got around that I was claiming to be a writer, and I guess I had no right to working at a job like everyone else. So, I felt as if I was treated unfairly by bosses and co-workers all because they believed I was something I was not.

Here we go...this is how the lies of the Milkman get people believing the lies and it carries the message forward to anyone who will listen. Sad to say, I made a believer out of those Milkman followers and Milkman carriers after a while when I later produced more books.

Just the power of the Milkman and his influence on what people believe and how they believe it is real. As I said earlier, everyone has dealt with a Milkman.

Keeping Your Name Out of the Milkman’s Mouth

The only true way to keep your name out of the Milkman’s mouth is not to tell your business to anyone to begin with.

Learn how to deal with your own problems and find someone you know who doesn’t have a track record of discussing other people’s problems. I’m sure you have been someone’s topic of discussion somewhere, right?

The Milkman can’t talk about what he does not know unless he lies. Certainly, we have seen many folks do that all in the name of keeping friends or making themselves look good. That is one of the milkman’s best traits, which is called relational aggression.

You can’t stop someone from lying about you and to you, but what you can do is stay far away from that person so when he or she does tell lies about you, then the people who know your honesty and integrity will know the Milkman is telling a lie, because you simply don’t talk to that person or you don’t know them.

Drinking the Gossip

More than attention, the Milkman loves to gossip. Most celebrities will tell you, the one thing they hate is gossip, because they know someone is trying to steal their shine, kill their career, or are muddying up their spotlight. So, they just ignore it until it goes away, but not everyone can do that.

We, everyday ordinary people, who are not in the spotlight, feel the need to get to the bottom of the gossip or at least find out who the gossipers are and put a stop to it once and for all. But, trust me, that’s not always such a good idea. Knowing who is talking about you behind your back is the key to identifying the Milkman in your life.

If you have a lot of friends, this can take some time to figure out, but once you know who you cannot trust, then you will never let the Milkman share your stories again, no matter what his intentions are.

And if that Milkman is you, then you have a lot of work ahead of you. The first thing you need to do is to stop destroying your own name. The information I’m providing here will show you how you can stop the Milkman’s behavior and focus on becoming a better you. No one has to be the child of the Milkman, not even you. Trust me, you don’t even have to keep company with the Milkman’s children. You just have to learn how to stay away from people who gossip, no matter how juicy and interesting the beginning of the story sounds.

The true reason is gossip does not help anyone at all. It hurts and it hurts badly. No one wants to be the butt of gossip and lies...not even me. Sure, we can give out information, but when it’s about you, it doesn’t feel good. So, stop gossiping unless you are talking to the person who something happened to and you were there.

So What about The Mailman?

Some would say the Mailman is even worse, but for me, they are one and the same. Just like the Milkman, the Mailman is a carrier of news, and not just paper news, but your business. They both carry the same thing and that’s relational aggression on others.

We either have a Milkman or a Mailman in our lives. The Milkman delivers news as well. It’s just they love telling your business, whereas the Mailman shares it and enjoys sharing your business with the world. Both are not good to be around, and if you are one or the other, you really need to change your ways and fast.

Chapter II: Who Needs To Know?

Every time something bad or good happens in your life, as humans, we feel the need to let those close to us know what’s going on. The truth of the matter is who really needs to know?

This reminds me of the time when I was getting ready to launch a big project, and I could feel not everyone around me was worth knowing, but me and my big mouth just had to share the good news. I noticed that after I did that I lost the energy to move forward. I also noticed and found that most people with negative energy seem to take more away from you than you are really willing to give.

That, my friend, is because they do not have any good intentions for you. Yes, I know you know them, and they may talk a little too much about other people’s issues whom they really know nothing about. But at the end of the day, they are an ear, but worse than that, you are the ear.

Who really cares what’s going on, and why do you tell people you know who will only carry your business back to the village and tear it in pieces? If you don’t know the answer to that, let me tell you why you do that. You do it, because, first of all, you are a human being who strives and lives off information. Secondly, you do it because you like it. I can tell you why I did it, which was for those two reasons, but I am sure there are many more, such as insecurity, jealousy, bitterness, control, and the list goes on.

My reasons were just because I liked it, but I found myself telling more about myself than listening to gossip and the dirt on others.

How do you control yourself from telling something that has nothing to do with you, to someone who has nothing to do with the story?

You can control it once again by identifying those around you who don’t help you grow.

Milkman and Mailman Behaviors

Below are the ten key identifiers that reveal the Milkman or Mailman behaviors.

They seek out unverified information or gossip from unknown sources.

They really don’t care if you know the people they are speaking about or not.

They’re always asking if you’ve heard anything else lately.

They only come around you to gather information.

They always gossip about someone who really seems to not give a damn.

They feel like they have accomplished something by telling you something that may not be true.

They can’t wait to call you with bad news and sometime good news that always seems to lead to gossip.

They are very jealous of the person they are always talking about.

They copy that person’s style, personality, house he or she lives in, and even the type of car that person drives.

They can’t seem to stop talking about that person.

Do You Have Milkman or Mailman Tendencies?

Sometimes it’s not always clear to us if we have Milkman or Mailman tendencies, because what we do and what we say has been our style for a very long time. Listed below are ten key indicators that say you have the tendencies to live like a milkman or mailman.

You take whatever news you get about someone and spread it around like poison oak.

You love to hear bad news about someone else’s life.

You always seem to have something bad to

Reviews for Don’t Tell the Milkman If You Don’t Want Him to Tell the World

[watkins123 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book is terrific! I can relate to many of the situations in this book. It sheds a light and puts it into plain English what I have gone through as well as what I have done to others. Unlike most self help books I have read, it was actually an outstanding read and not boring at all it kept me page turning to see what was next, I learned about my self, this is recommended reading for everyone, this is a must read!

[ToniAdams · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is an extraordinary book! It takes you through real life situations; and allows you to recognize the importance of communication and how to deal with all types of people.